Today A and I spent the day at La Ronde, located fairly centrally within metropolitan Montréal on Île Sainte-Hélène. It's a metro stop or two from the city centre plus a short 15 minute walk through the pretty Parc Jean-Drapeau. With it nearly the end of the season, we had to go and check out this unique park!

Traditionally a day-trip to a theme park requires us to get up pretty early and it's usually a struggle, but this time it was no problem because of the location, and we managed to get to the park right on opening time. However they don't open the rides until 30 minutes after the gates open, allowing people to casually disperse through the park. This is a pretty good idea.

The layout is typically confusing, although unlike other parks I've visited the design tends to include a large number of dead-ends, which causes a bit of frustration when navigating around despite the map.

We spent the first bit of the day trying to work out how to prioritise the day, as the park was filling up very quickly. Armed with RCDB (as usual), I started to go through their entry to avoid bad-choices. Most parks have a Vampire, a Cobra, a Goliath, and so forth, but the name doesn't necessarily fit the same ride as the other parks.

Regardless of what John would do, we weren't heading towards any of the water rides given the freezing wind, and I don't think we even saw any of them operating. These Canadians are much saner than the Belgians!

Our first point of call was the Cobra, a standing model that appeared similar to the Vortex at Carowinds, but it remained closed all day with a squad of technicians swarming around the thing. It's not a big loss, really, as I'm not a huge fan of standing-coasters.

Our first port of call was the Vampire, a tried and tested inverted classic, and much larger than the Vampire at Walibi in Belgium (which they have too, but they call it Ednör - L'Attaque, and we didn't find it until much later in the day). The queue for this coaster should have been an indication of how the day would go, with us spending about an hour in the queue — not a good sign for the first ride of the day.

Leaving the Vampire, we were then stuck in a dead-end and started to make out way back. Annoyed by three dead-ends already, we got on what's left of the rickety Minirail built for the Expo 67World's Fair, and headed over to the other side of the park with the intention of working out way back at some point. Their website says it'll “take your breath away,” but this is more in fear of the rusting electronics and the worry it's about to tip off the rails. I think they should list this as a 10km/h thrill ride!

We landed on Goliath, a slightly longer and faster version of the Goliath we rode at Walibi World, which was excellent, and the queue was moving much faster this time (about 45 minutes). While waiting in the queue, though, we realised that the ride was only running one train, which seemed surprising given the number of people in the park.

This is one very cool ride, amazingly smooth and gives a lot of air time — a lot more than its Dutch counterpart I think.

By now it we were starting to get a bit hungry (it was very much lunchtime by then) and annoyed we'd only managed to get two rides in so far, so we went for lunch. Of all the choice available, we somehow settled on McDonalds (it was also the cheapest option, as we later found out). Amusingly as much as in Belgium you can get a beer with your meal (instead of a soft-drink), in Canada you can have poutine instead of fries. Wonderful!

Everyone was so civilised and gentile; this was not your typical feeding-trough experience you'd see at any of the other parks I've been to. Even in these conditions, which are likely to make even normal people turn bad, the Canadians are really pleasant people.

Despite having not really warmed up, we started queuing for the Toboggan Nordique (I'm a sucker for those wild mouse rides), however having moved about 10 metres in 30 minutes, and potentially another two hours of queuing in front of us, we abandoned the ride along with loads of others people. It just wasn't worth it.

We went and grabbed a coffee and tried to figure out what to do next. We ended up at the Super Manège (same as the Tornado at Walibi, but it was closed before I arrived in Belgium, and ultimately scrapped when they built the ill-fated Vertigo). The queue was very short, and being a steel-coaster from the early 80s I expected this to be a stiff ride, like the painful Cyclone at Carowinds, but actually it was actually alright.

Having seen the enormous queue for the Monstre, and the number of people heading in with food and drinks, we grabbed a coffee and attempted to queue for the ride. In the time it had taken to get a coffee and return, the staff member manning the entrance to the ride had changed and was adamant about no drinks being taken into the queue, and refused to believe that anyone else had taken food and drink beyond that point before he had arrived.

We gave up and headed back to the Goliath for another ride as we finished our coffees. It was just as excellent as before, and A finally let go of the railing and enjoyed the ride this time, flailing her arms in the air at each hill!

We returned to the Monstre for another attempt and after over two hours of infuriating queuing we finally managed to get on the ride. Again, only two trains were operating on one track (there are two tracks, four trains in total), and given the length of the queue we were completely mystified as to why they would run everything at half-capacity. We managed to get to the front of the train, with everyone else perplexed as to why we would wait a bit longer for the opportunity, and soon found out why they were reticent to ride at the front.

With the sun setting, swarms of bugs had conveniently placed themselves at head-height on every single hill throughout the ride, so we were under constant bombarded with bugs at 95km/h. The ride itself is such an awesome wooden ride, but at that time of the day it's probably better to sit at the back and let everyone else shield you from the majority of the bugs. If you've ever had a drive through the countryside, collecting splatters on your windshield, then you should have some understanding of how messy it was.

Checking on the map, we found that we'd missed out on a whole chunk of the park, so we eventually found a way through to find Ednör - L'Attaque, themed like a museum with a giant snake — or something — at the end. Having done this ride to death at Walibi (and Walibi World), we skipped it for the time being to go and see what else was lurking down in this corner of the park.

It was then that I found the Catapulte.

I got hooked on the smaller version of this at Walibi (known as the Sky Dive), and John and I even went and tracked it down after it moved to Walibi World, and then I went on a similar thing at Carowinds. Basically you're in a harness and pulled up and back on a steel cable, and then let go to free-fall at first and then swing.

Being cold and tired I wasn't sure if I was up for it, and this time I'd be on my own as it's certainly something A would never try. Where's John's blind confidence when you need it?

Ahh… Bugger it!

Typically you need to book in advance for the ride, but this time whoever was schedule didn't turn up, so I was lucky to be able to take their turn immediately. The staff were a little surprised to learn that I'd done this so many times before, and I'm not even sure if they thought I was a bit mad. It was well worth the money, and as I turned around after the first pass the view of Montréal in the dark from that height (combined with floating mid-air) was incredible. This was the best surprise and made the day completely worth-while!

Being cold, we decided to start heading home, passing a Valentine near the Goliath for a cheap hot-dog. It was so good given the cold foggy evening; we grabbed another one at another Valentine on the way near the Toboggan Nordique, only to find that the price had suddenly gone up. We were too tired and cold to argue much and made our way out.

It's an amazing park considering its location, but we were both very surprised at the number of people and the fact that everything was running at half-capacity, including some of the staff apparently. Maybe we're getting too old for all the queuing, but if we lived in Montréal we'd probably have a season pass to this place!

End of season downside I think… they were clearly winding down for the winter and therefore were only running half the trains. Given it was soo busy, as they were feeding off Halloween week, it is really bad of them to do this as such long waiting times were really not necessary.

Real shame as this park would be great with everything running as it should.

"However they don’t open the rides until 30 minutes after the gates open, allowing people to casually disperse through the park. This is a pretty good idea."

Actually, the smarter thing to do is open the rides the furthest away from the entraces, immediately. The rides nearest the entrance should be closed for the first 30 minutes. This draws people into the park more effectively. The reverse for closing time. Rides furthest from the exit close 30 minutes earlier than the rides nearest the exit.

I seem to remember Walibi closing like that at one point, mostly by closing rides an hour (or more) before the park closes which did nothing but drive up the queues at the two rides closest to the entrance (Vampire and Cobra), meaning they have to stop operating those rides an hour after the park officially closed! Wonderful mismanagement.

Anyway, you can easily cope with water rides in -4℃ freezing wind because you’re Irish! I have no idea what allows you to do all that while still wearing a t-shirt, though.

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